Week 19: Almost done with our Commedia Piece

Monday: Mr. Fearnehough reminded us that our deadline for the commedia piece was coming up. This worried most of us, because we had not finished devising each of the scenes or added in the technical parts, sound, costumes, or sets and props. We postponed the deadline to the half term break. This realization of a pending deadline gave us new motivation to get moving on our piece.

 

yes Halley, this is London

Wednesday: Mr. Fearnehough got a lot of props out of the closet for us to experiment with, I had also brought some props from home and made some cue cards to use for the audience. The use of all of these props makes our piece feel more like a professional thing. Then we started working on the scene where me and Mary meet each other, officially. We added a lot of lazzi to it and worked out a structure for it. Then we took a short water break. When we came back Mr. Fearnehough talked to us about reflecting on what we have done for our PPP. He gave us a lot of tips on how to talk about. But most of it can be summed up in one question- "What have I learned as an about the acting process?". Since this is my first serious attempt at acting I think that I have learned a lot.

• Be flexible and open to change. Be completely willing to go with  a new idea. We had attempted to do a scene one way one time and I thought that it was fine, then Mr. Fearnehough said that we should try it another way. I was not willing to change because we had already done it the other way. When we did do it the new way it was better. 
• Share ideas with others- no idea is a bad idea.The entire process of commedia is about making things up on the spot. everyone needs to share their ideas or the piece will never improve. It is good to collaborate and discuss ideas with the entire group-they can help you improve your idea or might have a better idea. For instance- Halley, Lydia, and Bekki had the idea for a recurring joke.
• Delegating is extremely useful, if every one understands the performance concept, than it is just a waste of time for everyone to work one each technical role together. Even though it is fine to ask advice/help from the others.
• You are only limited by what you believe you cannot do. I believed that I could not sing badly or goof off in front of people and I was not able to, but once I tried with an open mind I was able to do it.
• Some one needs to take charge of the rehearsal and keep everyone on track. Sometimes when we are devising we start talking about random stuff and stop working, if no one took charge and pull our attention back we would never get anything done.
• A performance is alive and changing. Our piece is a devised, improvisational piece, but in all performances there are going to be slight changes, whether because of a mishap or not, that will make each  performance a little different, don't try to make everything exactly the same because it won't work and you will make things weird.
• It is important to always know your objective, why you are on stage. Keep the finish line in sight and concentrate on how to get there. It is not necessary to take the quickest route there, but it is important to pay attention to purpose of your character at all times.
• Warm-ups are for focusing on the rehearsal-not talking and socializing. Today Mary led the warm-up which was stretching. Almost everyone was talking to one another, and barely paying attention to the warm-up. The warm-up sets the mood for the rehearsal so if we are flighty and distractible during it we will for the rest of the rehearsal. The warm-up should be a time of quiet and focus.

After we discussed what we learned from this project we went back to rehearsing. We finished me and Mary's scene and moved on to the cinema scene. While we working on it Axel got hit in the eye by a piece of sticky tack. This showed us that while we should not be afraid to play with one another we do need to be careful to not do something dangerous that will hurt others.

Thursday: Mr. Fearnehough led the warm-up today. He showed us how to do "Acting by Numbers". This warm-up helped us explore the different emotional tension levels of acting. In this activity, each person sat on a chair in a row. Mr. Fearnehough told us a type of movie, romance, horror, comedy,.., and to imagine we were watching it. Then he had one person start reacting to the movie, at a low level, then he moved down the line and had each person progressively increase the emotion. The more difficult part of this warm-up was continuing the emotion at a lower level while the people around you are at a higher level. This is kind of like mob mentality. If one person increases the emotion in a group every else feels it and attempts to match or surpass their emotion. Another thing that Mr. Fearnehough said that I really liked was that it was hard to think about how to react more, it was easier to just go with your gut feeling, follow your instincts. I find this a little difficult to be open and willing to follow my instincts like that. Then we worked on the cinema scene.

Friday: Halley, Bekki, Lydia, Cam, and Maddi helped me paint the lockers.

We are doing really well working together and learning from each other!